Kevin Costner is aware of a great story when he hears one.
That’s why he stated he was intrigued when he heard about an app designed to alert vacationers of notable, but typically unnoticed, locations of curiosity alongside their journeys.
“I’m the man that driving round America … while you see these bronze markers alongside the best way, I wish to cease. I wish to learn what was there,” he stated. “It’s one thing of historical past, and I bear in mind being actually thrilled by that. Otherwise, you are simply watching the miles click on off.”
An app that might ship compelling, well timed tales straight to him was interesting, he stated, since “a great story has all the time been one thing that is thrilled me.”
Costner was loosely linked to the app’s creator, entrepreneur Woody Sears, via their kids, Sears stated. While the app was in preliminary levels, Costner agreed to relate a number of tales earlier than ultimately becoming a member of the corporate as a co-founder.
The app — referred to as HearHere — launched in August 2020, fortuitously coinciding with one of many largest journey developments of the Covid period: the resurrection of the highway journey.
A ‘highway journey story information’
Similar to the previous two years, highway journeys are anticipated to dominate this summer time, in response to a survey by journey web site The Vacationer. Nearly 80% of American adults — or some 206 million Americans — plan to take one, in response to the survey of practically 1,100 American in March.
However, HearHere — which is billed as a “highway journey story information” — was in growth earlier than the pandemic, stated Sears.
“The concept of journey had modified for lots of people,” stated Sears. “We occurred to open our doorways concurrently the shift.”
Kevin Costner stated a key a part of the app HearHere is to inform the tales of the individuals who first inhabited North America, a topic on the coronary heart of his Academy Award-winning movie “Dances With Wolves.”
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Costner stated he is been concerned with a number of start-ups, however this one “was within the wheelhouse of what I already do by way of storytelling, and my type of love of historical past,” stated Costner.
From “The Untouchables” to “JFK” and “Wyatt Earp,” a lot of Costner’s most well-known films have touched upon pivotal figures in American historical past. A key cause for his involvement with HearHere was his want to inform the tales of the primary individuals to inhabit North America. It’s a topic he explored within the 1990 Academy Award-winning movie “Dances With Wolves,” which Costner starred in, directed and produced.
“That was the basic for me … who’re the primary individuals? — as a result of there is no right here with out figuring out who was there earlier than,” he stated.
The more durable truths
HearHere has greater than 9,000 tales up to now, with matters starting from Abraham Lincoln to Janis Joplin, and from Kentucky’s National Corvette Museum to Nashville’s music scene.
But to Costner, telling the more durable truths about U.S. historical past is paramount too.
“Our story just isn’t all the time an awesome one. There was a lot violence in America. We’re watching violence play out now throughout the globe … to suppose that that did not happen right here — it did,” he stated.
Stories about America’s Founding Fathers and its Civil War battlefields are interspersed with histories of Mississippi cities settled by slaves and the disenfranchisement of Black individuals.
“We do not should be ashamed about it,” stated Costner. “We could be a little embarrassed, however it’s extra embarrassing to not know.”
An increase in audio content material
HearHere has been downloaded greater than 400,000 occasions and has subscribers in each U.S. state, stated Sears. The firm introduced in February it had raised $3.2 million in seed funding, led by the American leisure automobile firm Camping World.
Though he is on the forefront of a brand new cell app firm, Costner indicated he is not a lot into tech. He stated most cell apps “fly over my head” and, of HearHere’s Twitter web page: “I do not even know easy methods to get on it.”
The co-founders of HearHere: Woody Sears, Kevin Costner and Bill Werlin. “I’m not a figurehead … that is my curiosity,” stated Costner.
Source: HearHere
“I used to be actually raised with wolves,” he stated. “If I have to develop my life … I’ve to open my ears, I’ve to open my eyes. When I’m touring throughout the nation, my nostril would not should be in a pc — it must be looking.”
Sears stated so-called “display screen fatigue” is among the causes audio content material outpaced video content material in 2021. Audio leisure can also be simpler to combine into each day life as a result of it may be consumed whereas “strolling, driving and doing chores, versus video which is primarily watched whereas stationary,” he stated.
Demand for audio companies surged in the course of the pandemic, with firms equivalent to Amazon, Twitter and Facebook asserting expanded audio platforms over the previous a number of years.
Launching into different nations?
While U.S.-based tales proceed to be added to HearHere, Costner stated the corporate has a mannequin that lends itself properly to worldwide growth.
He stated the corporate remains to be refining its enterprise and listening to its prospects, however “I like to leap off the web page fairly truthfully … strive one thing new,” he stated.
Costner stated he applies an analogous strategy to his films.
“It’s simple to comply with a pattern — it is way more tough to attempt to be authentic. Trends, or the repetition of one thing common, is a means you make some huge cash,” he stated. “Doing one thing that is basic — that nobody’s felt like they’ve ever seen earlier than — can dwell eternally.”